Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker, Minister for Regional Health, Regional Communications and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

It's the definition of irony that the member for McEwen's speech was about bringing politics into the debate about COVID-19 and the vaccine rollout, and it was probably one of the most political speeches I've heard in this place in my 14 years here. The truth of the matter is that we have the luxury to be having these debates in this country, because if we were in nearly any other country in the world we would have loved ones, people we know and people from our communities who would have died by now.

This country is in a very, very safe position because of the leadership from not only this government but the health sector, the state governments and people all over this nation. I believe we should be actually showing some relief and respect for the fact that we are there, because we are probably one of the safest countries on this planet and the focus on the negativity is not helping the confidence of the Australian people when it comes to be stepping up and taking the opportunity with the vaccine.

I want to pay some tribute to the health professionals around, as the minister for regional Australia. Over the last 18 months their contribution through round tables, largely through zooms and telecommunications, were feeding information back in from Aboriginal communities, from all the states, from the GPs, from the surgeons, from the pharmacists, from the allied health workers.

I don't want people to forget the issue that we were facing right from the start. We were facing a pandemic that was killing people on a scale right across the globe, and the Australian people have stepped up admirably and followed and taken advantage of the processes that have been put in place.

To say that the people in Australia aren't being vaccinated is just not true. So far we've seen three million doses completed across the country. Across the globe, we've seen 3.7 million cases in the last week alone and 80,000 deaths in the last week. So, while we have the luxury of being able to have these debates in the safety of this country in which we live, we should remember that we are in the middle of a global pandemic. I have great sympathy for the people of Victoria, and I understand the emotion that the Victorian members bring to this place because they're in for a very, very tough time, but the actions that are being taken are stopping people from dying, they are keeping them safe. We do need to make sure that we keep that vaccine rollout continuing on. Across regional Australia in the places I visit, whether they're GPs or Aboriginal medical services or respiratory clinics that are being funded by the Commonwealth, what I've been told is that people in regional Australia are taking the opportunity, they are stepping up, they are having the vaccine when the opportunity arrives.

I've booked in to a clinic at four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon in the member for New England's electorate. Medical staff right across the country are stepping up and putting in that extra effort to make sure that they can cover people and protect them in a timely manner. My encouragement is that everyone, when they have the opportunity, step up and take that chance, because, until we have this country vaccinated and people protected, then we'll not get back to the normality that we had. But we must not forget that in this country we have people in employment and we have people who are being kept safe from the virus, and that hasn't happened by accident; it's happened because of the work of a lot of people right across the country, led by this government, who has shown leadership right throughout this pandemic in conjunction with the states to make sure that the Australian people are protected.

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